


Impossible Odds

by Jazz_in_the_Tardis



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe, F/M, Healing, Heartbreak, Parallel Universes, Romance, Science Fiction, Slice of Life, True Love, after journey's end, struggles, tentoo/rose - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 02:46:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5113304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jazz_in_the_Tardis/pseuds/Jazz_in_the_Tardis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happened to Rose and the Doctor after the last scene on Bad Wolf Bay? Can Rose accept the meta-crisis Doctor for who he is? Will the Doctor be able to settle down with the love of his life? In a world of impossible odds, they may just have a chance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Impossible Odds

Rose was busying herself making up a bed on the sofa for the Doctor as he stood across the room, watching. They were in one of four bedrooms in the Tyler household, the spare room. The other three were home to Jackie and Pete, Rose, and Rose’s little brother, Tony, whom the Doctor hadn’t met yet. They had arrived late. The trip to Cardiff from Norway had been excruciatingly silent. Rose refused to meet the Doctor’s eyes, let alone speak to him. The Doctor didn’t know what the right thing to do was, so he had remained quiet. Everyone else was already in bed. There were no lamps in the spare room so the only light was a faint yellow glow pouring through the door from another room.

The makeshift bed was complete. “Good night,” Rose said sideways as she hurried to leave.

The Doctor couldn’t let her go. “Rose, wait.” He reached for her hand. She tried to slide away but he held on firmly. “Please, look at me.”

Rose slowly turned her gaze to meet his. She looked so tired, her eyes shining with fresh tears, her shoulders heavy with the weight of all that had happened. The Doctor’s stomach lurched. A long moment passed, Rose staring at him as though he were a memory; a familiar face that she couldn’t quite believe to be true. The Doctor squeezed her hand lightly. “It is me.” He said encouragingly. “I’m here.”

“Don’t,” Rose said shakily. Her lip trembled. “Please just, don’t.” And with that she slipped out of his grasp and fled out of the room, shutting the door behind her, leaving the Doctor in the dark.

The Doctor ran his fingers through his hair nervously, looking around in the dark for some sort of solution. He wasn’t used to Rose being so upset at him, and their lack of camaraderie felt like a punch in the gut. He was winded and exasperated, and all alone in the dark. He wanted nothing more than to hop in the Tardis and go somewhere fun and far away, somewhere distracting. But his Tardis was gone, and he had nowhere to be but here. He pulled out the piece of Tardis coral from his pocket, and sat down on the sofa, fumbling it in his hands. His beloved Tardis, off with the other Doctor and Donna on new adventures unknown, without him. 

Donna… he already missed her. Shortly after the Tardis had faded away, the parts that were connected with Donna inside the Doctor became clouded, like a storm of dread in his mind. But he couldn’t think of Donna and the Doctor as anything but happy – together as equals. No – he didn’t want to think of it, any of it - it was too much. Anger welled up inside of him and he chucked the coral across the room and growled, slamming his back down onto the sofa. 

Only a few minutes passed and already he felt restless. The drumming of his one heartbeat rang out into the night and felt so odd against his chest. He missed the rhythm of his old heartbeats. One heart was so simple, so defined; the sound of it could quickly drive him to madness. He couldn’t sleep, so instead he spent the entire night fidgeting and running through his memories of Rose, searching for some way to reach her.

-.-.-

As soon as a pale light crept through the windows, the Doctor was up and out of the room. He made his way to the kitchen. The house was quiet as the Tyler family slept. The Doctor thought of Rose asleep in her bed and wanted to go in and wake her with excitement, but he reminded himself that she wasn’t too happy with him at the moment. So he decided to make tea instead.

It’s not as though the Doctor had never made tea before, but it was one of those human rituals that he’d only participated in once or twice in his very long lifetime. He didn’t cook, he didn’t shop for groceries, and he didn’t make tea. However, being that he was now stuck in a human day-to-day life, he figured now was as good of time as any to give it a go.

The Doctor found the electric kettle on the counter, and he filled it with water from the tap and turned it on. He opened and closed the cupboards as quietly as he could, searching the unfamiliar kitchen for teabags. He shook his head at what was obviously Jackie’s organization skill, or lack thereof, when he finally found the teabags next to a jar of pickled eggs in the cupboard above the stove. He stood in the kitchen and impatiently stared at the kettle.

“Are you trying to frighten the kettle into boiling?” came a soft voice. Rose had appeared in the kitchen entryway. She was in pyjamas and a robe, hair disheveled, her arms crossed tightly around her chest, but she was smiling. It was a small turn of her lips, a ghost of a grin, but it was there, and the weight in the Doctor’s chest finally lightened a bit.

The Doctor grinned widely at her. “Think it’s working?” Rose smiled a fraction more and shifted her eyes to the floor. Just then, the kettle dinged and the Doctor busied himself making cups for both of them. He handed Rose hers, and she thanked him and held it gingerly. 

There was a long pause as they stood there in the kitchen. Finally, Rose said, “Didn’t sleep last night, did you?” She was looking him up and down, still fully dressed in his suit and shoes.

The Doctor shook his head. “You?” he asked politely.

“A little.”

“What are you doing up so early?”

Rose took a sip of her tea. “I’ve got to go into work. They’ll want to know what’s happened.”

“Everything?” the Doctor asked. Rose took a deep breath. She knew what he was implying.

“Yeah,” she said. “They’ll want to catalogue the details. So, you can come with me, if you want.”

Excitement bubbled up inside the Doctor at the thought of seeing this world’s Torchwood and how it was getting on. He wondered how advanced it would be, seeing as they had found a way to allow Rose to jump through dimensions.

“Right, well,” Rose said after the Doctor didn’t respond. “I’m going to get ready to go. See you in a bit.” She turned to go then turned back to face him. “Doctor?” she used his name tentatively like she had the day he regenerated, and she had to be convinced that it was really him. “Thanks for the tea.” And with that, she left.

The Doctor smiled at this small victory and sipped his own tea – and grimaced. It was rubbish.

-.-.-

Rose was getting ready to go to Torchwood headquarters, looking over herself in the mirror. She liked to look professional at work, and was wearing a grey business suit and modestly high heels, her hair pulled back in a low ponytail. She stared into her own hazel eyes and thought of the Doctor. It was all so surreal, coming into the kitchen and seeing him making tea. Saving the world one day, making tea in her parents’ kitchen the next. Never a normal day when the Doctor was around. 

She wanted to be okay with him, but in truth, she was angry and hurt. And scared. What if this Doctor really wasn’t like her Doctor at all? She couldn’t go through losing him again, and yet she was the one keeping them at a distance. She sighed. If the Doctor was as violent and reckless as the… other Doctor… was when he first regenerated, does that mean that all of the good she had supposedly done for him in their time together was gone? 

Rose shook her head to clear her thoughts. “Right,” she told herself, “let’s get on with it.” She checked herself one more time in the mirror before walking out to meet the Doctor. She went to the spare room and knocked lightly on the door. She heard the sofa creak immediately and the Doctor flung open the door. He looked so nervous and unsure, it broke her heart.

“Ready to go?” she asked. She tried to sound light but everything she said came out flat and almost cold. She imagined the Doctor shivering at her icy tone.

But the Doctor flashed a brilliant smile instead and replied, “Yep, _allons-y!”_

They didn’t talk much on the way to headquarters. Rose couldn’t think of what to say, and although the Doctor was quite cheerful, she could tell he was being cautious around her. She hated it, but she also thought it was probably for the best at the moment.

The Doctor had a lot of energy and wanted to get to the Torchwood Institute in a hurry. But Rose was having none of that. He would sprint and disappear round a corner, but Rose would walk steadily behind, and when she turned round the corner she’d find him waiting there for her. Eventually, he slowed his pace to match hers, and Rose felt a bit proud of herself, and then disgusted with herself for being proud, like she was training some kind of puppy. An adorable puppy in a blue suit. An adorable puppy in a blue suit with fantastic hair. _Oh, God._

They arrived at Torchwood Tower and took the entrance down to the base. Torchwood One was well-developed like it was in the parallel world before the Doctor shut it down. Rose had been helping Torchwood on a freelance basis, under no obligations but her own. Torchwood was good for an Earth without the Doctor. Rose hoped the Doctor would see that too.

The Doctor’s eyes darted about in all directions, taking in the mass amount of alien technology stowed away, confiscated and declared property of Torchwood. His brow was furrowed but he seemed fascinated, if not a bit wary. Rose imagined gears like clockwork whirring inside his brain. She smiled to herself when he wasn’t looking.

Rose tried to get the Doctor to follow her through to the office where the meeting was being held but she lost him. “Look at this!” he cried, the excitement of a child etched on his face. “An actual Terileptilian war gun! How did they manage to confiscate that?! I really hope they won’t be needing that back…” he added under his breath. Another artifact caught his eye and he exclaimed loudly. Rose stood with her arms crossed as the Doctor ran about the room like a boy in a toy shop.

An automatic door slid open and Rose turned round to see a member of Torchwood, a dark woman named Sara Marshall, coming into the room. “You were late,” she said to Rose. “You’re never late.”

“I got… held up.”

A crash sounded behind them and they both turned to see the Doctor fumbling with a pile of what looked to be Ood communication spheres. Realisation set in Sara’s features and her eyes grew wide. “Oh my God, you’re the Doctor.”

Hearing his name, the Doctor finally came back round to the others in the room and approached them, smiling pleasantly. “That’s me! And who might you be?”

Sara straightened her back and saluted at once. “Sara Marshall, Sir. Executive at Torchwood headquarters.”

“No, don’t do that,” the Doctor groaned at Sara’s salute. Sara eased.

“But how is this possible?” Sara said, turning to Rose. “The Doctor’s actually here?”

“Well, yeah he is, but he’s not. It’s not really him…”

“Oi!” the Doctor said indignantly.

Oi? Did that really just come out of the Doctor’s mouth? Rose was startled for a moment, then blinked the thought away and grabbed Sara by the arm, guiding her back to the lift. “I’ll explain everything to everyone once we’re in the meeting,” she whispered.

Inside the meeting room, there were about six Torchwood members, the higher-ups. Yvonne Hartman sat at the head of the table, the leader. Everyone gasped when they set eyes on the Doctor, exclaiming in shock and delight at the Doctor’s unexpected appearance; Yvonne Hartman looked as if she were about to stand up and start clapping. Rose tried to shush the room.

“Let me explain.” She said. But then froze. She didn’t want to explain. She was exhausted just thinking about explaining.

 

The Doctor saw Rose shrink back, and rushed to address the room. “Human – Time Lord Biological Meta-crisis. That’s me,” he waved his hand, “hello. I’m the Doctor. The other Doctor, actually. Well, the same one, but not the first one. See, when the Doctor – me, but not me – fought the leader of the Sycorax, his right hand was chopped off but grew back because his regeneration cycle was still in flux. Quite a show, really – but, anyway, fast forward a couple years: I – meaning, the Doctor - was nearly exterminated by a Dalek and had to regenerate but I focused the energy into the severed hand and turned back into my old self, and then my friend Donna Noble was trapped in a burning Tardis and reached for the hand and the regenerative powers went into her, making her part time lord, and growing me, the Doctor, out of a severed hand, giving me one heart and a bit of a mouth, thanks to Donna. I saved everyone but technically committed genocide and also fancied being with Rose Tyler, so when the battle was won - thanks to me - I was dropped off in this universe and the other Doctor, the full Time Lord Doctor, went back to his universe and that’s how I got here. So, to refresh,” he waved his hand again. “Hello, I’m the Doctor.”

There was a long silence in the room. After the pause, Yvonne Hartman said, “We’re going to need that in writing.”

-.-.-

After several hours of Rose and the Doctor explaining everything in detail to the members of Torchwood, they finally left headquarters and stepped into the sunlight again.

“You know they’re going to ask you to join the team,” Rose stated.

“I know.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to take you out for chips.”

Rose was startled. “Excuse me?”

The Doctor turned on Rose and looked straight in her eyes. She faltered and looked away, but he spoke directly to her. “When we first met, I took you to see the end of the world, and when we got back you bought us chips, remember? Well, we’ve just come back from the near-ending of reality itself and, Rose Tyler…” Rose met his eyes then. The Doctor grinned. “Chips are on me.”

Rose’s heart fluttered madly in her chest. She somehow managed an utterance of agreement. A simple memory but so significant was one only the Doctor could recall. Rose let the Doctor take her by the hand and lead her through the streets. The memory of the first time came rushing back: when the Doctor wore a different face and a leather jacket as a suit of armor; when everything felt so simple. Then Rose thought of landing on New Earth with the new new Doctor, lying on his coat in the field, the heavy scent of apple grass wafting in the breeze. _That was our first date_ , she’d said, and the Doctor had smiled, _We had chips._  
  
So much had happened since then. The Doctor’s hand was still warm in hers, the feel of it familiar and comforting. But Rose felt less connected to the Doctor than ever. She didn’t know what to do with the hurt and uncertainty. The future was unclear, and they couldn’t just hop into the Tardis and ignore it by traveling to the past. It was as if a rift had opened between them. Could time really close it for good?


End file.
